Eighty Years
by Jessica314
Summary: A one-shot, post-Breaking Dawn companion to the third chapter of Tale of Years: 1933. Edward has been waiting 80 years to bring Bella to a certain special place.


**A/N: This is an epilogue to the third chapter of Tale of Years: 1933, in which Edward and Esme go hunting in Ontario. You don't really need to read that first, but I do recommend it, so you can get the full "awwww" factor. Just a cute little one-shot, enjoy :) **

**Bella POV**

"Are you sure about this?"

I stared down into the frigid depths of Lake Ontario, my pale blue dress snapping around my legs in the wind. We were poised at the edge of a cliff, at least two hundred feet up.

Edward laughed, pushing me closer toward the edge. "Don't tell me that in your seven years as a vampire, you've never gone swimming!"

"It's not the swimming," I grumbled, "it's the distance. Did you know I once had to be rescued from a swimming pool? And I had been in the shallow end!"

"That was when you were human, love," he said cheerfully. "And the distance doesn't matter. It's not like we have to breathe, anyway."

"I _hate_ not breathing."

"Then you're going to lose."

"Lose what?"

"The race. We're going to race to the other side." He pushed me harder, and my feet dug into the grass as I resisted him.

"Yeah, right. I know better than to race against _you_."

"Don't be so sure. I'm no faster than anyone else in the water."

That piqued my curiosity. Would it be possible to beat him? I had to try…

"All right," I said, stretching up to kiss him on the cheek. He grinned hugely and, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, pushed me right off the cliff.

I screamed as I fell, twisting my body just in time to hit the water in a graceful dive. Edward dipped into beside me with even less of a splash, and I swiped my shield aside furiously so I could yell at him underwater. _I could have jumped, you know!_

_I thought you liked cliff diving,_ he signed back with an innocent smile.

Learning sign language was our newest project we were doing together, but I refused to dignify his joke with a response. He wasn't looking at me, anyway. He was kicking off his shoes and sending a thousand bubbles floating around him as he emptied his lungs.

I grimaced and followed suit. I _had_ been swimming before as a vampire, often enough to know that if I had any chance of beating him, I'd have to swim much lower. I forced myself to blow out all my air, sinking lower and lower until I was hovering near the bottom next to my husband. It was quite dark this far down, since it was night already, and there was a new moon. The starlight barely illuminated the water around us; it would have been pitch black to my human eyes.

_We'll race to that beach with the stone jetty that I showed you earlier_, he signed as I joined him. _Ready? One, two, three!_

We shot forward, our arms cutting through the water at top speed. I was shocked to see that I was actually keeping up with him, and the realization gave me an extra burst of speed. I slowly edged past him, and he frowned as my shoulders came level with his face. I moved my shield again. _Watch this, slowpoke!_

I lurched forward with everything I had, getting another two feet past him. I bent my right knee up as far as I could, and, planting my foot on his left shoulder, I kicked him into a spin, leaving him far behind me.

The speed was exhilarating, and before long, I touched the Canadian shore in triumph. By the time he touched, I had already climbed up onto the beach and was wringing out the skirt of my dress. He scrambled up onto the beach behind me, flashing around me like a tornado and ending with his arms around me.

"I might have won if you didn't cheat," he growled, burying his face in my neck.

"I doubt it! So, where are we going?"

He took my hand, pulling me toward the highway up ahead. "Algonquin Provincial Park. It's a 150-mile run. I don't suppose you'd like to race _that_?"

I laughed. "Not on your life! Although I think I've just discovered that I love swimming. I can't wait to tell Emmett that I beat you!" We crossed the highway easily, darting across the lanes during a break in the traffic.

"You should have kept your shoes," I scolded as we ran. "If someone sees you, they're going to send you to a homeless shelter."

He shrugged. "I'll get them on the way home."

We ran the rest of the way in silence, arriving at the Park in less than an hour. I skidded to a stop a couple of miles in, sniffing the air. "Wolves," I said, smiling.

"Are you thirsty?"

"Sure, let's get a couple." The scent had awakened the burn in my throat; wolves weren't my absolute favorite, but I wouldn't mind a quick snack.

We followed the scent to an especially dense copse of trees, where we found a mated pair of gray wolves snoring together. Edward purposely stepped on a twig, and the snapping sound woke up the wolves, our scent quickly sending them into a snarling fury. We pounced, and I took the female, snapping her neck quickly so she wouldn't suffer. While I drank, I could hear Edward laughing as he teased the male, leading him on a chase through the trees. He was still playing after I had finished, and both of them tore back past me in a flash of fur and fabric.

Edward suddenly leapt up into the trees, freezing like a statue as soon as he landed on a low branch. The wolf looked around frantically, trying to figure out where his "prey" had gone. He saw me, and, deciding that I would be an easier catch, started stalking toward me. I bared my teeth in challenge, but before I could attack, Edward dropped down on top of him, crushing him to death instantly.

I waited for him to finish drinking before I spoke. "Well, we've had the dinner. What's next? A movie, or coffee?"

He laughed, picking up our kills and looking around for a hiding place. Not finding one, he dug a deep grave and tossed the wolves inside.

"Esme would love it here," I said, sniffing the air again. "I don't think I've ever smelled so many wolves in one place before."

"Yes, this used to be one her favorite hunting grounds, back when we lived in Rochester. She and I would come here sometimes while Carlisle was at work. Are you still thirsty?"

"No, I'm good."

"Come on, then, I want to show you something." By the softening in his voice, I knew this was the reason that we had crossed into Ontario. Jacob and Renesmee had just gotten married two weeks ago, and while they honeymooned in Australia, we had decided to take a second honeymoon, as well. Edward was taking me around the country, showing me all the spots where the Cullens had lived in the United States before I had joined their family.

I followed him to a little clearing a few miles away. The trees surrounding us were quite thick, but the clearing was just wide enough that the treetops were barely touching above our heads. Edward was looking up, as well, and he sighed contentedly. "I've been here before, with Esme. She thought that that spot up there was just like a window into Heaven. This is what I wanted to show you," he said softly.

He laid down in the center of the clearing, hold out his hand for me to join him. I stretched out on the ground comfortably, snuggling up next to him. He bent his right arm to make a pillow for my head, and we laid in silence for a while, watching the treetops sway above us.

As more stars came out, the clearing lightened just a bit. Edward held his hand up in the air, and a hundred tiny dots of light covered his arm. At first I thought they were stars, but just then the breeze picked up, and the dots blew wildly across his arm.

I smiled, holding my hand up next to his. The tiny dots were on my arm as well, and now I realized that they were bits of starlight that had found their way through the tangled leaves up above us. They reflected perfectly on our granite skin, and Edward watched as I turned my hand back and forth in the lights. He began humming softly, and our hands met, coming down to rest together on his chest. He fingered my wedding ring as his song grew a bit louder, and I realized I had never heard the melody before. It was a beautiful, lilting tune that seemed to go along with the dancing starlight. It only went on for a couple of minutes, and at the very last moment, the melody climbed upwards a bit, and the last hopeful noted echoed in my mind, long after the song had finished.

"That was beautiful," I said reverently. "What is it?"

"I wrote it for you," he whispered, "the last time I was here."

I frowned. "When did you come hunting way out here? While I was still human?" As soon as I asked the question, I wished I could take it back. The only time Edward had been away from me long enough to come this far had been when he had left me, and I knew he was still wracked with guilt every time the topic came up. He was able to make jokes sometimes- like about the cliff diving today- but I usually avoided bringing it up at all.

"No, you hadn't even been born yet. It was when we still lived in Rochester, back in 1933."

"But it was for me? How?"

He pulled me closer. "I wrote it for the woman I would marry someday. I knew that I might always be alone, but there was a part of me that was still hopeful. It's a ballad, a tribute to you and the hope that I had back then that I would find you eventually."

I tried to picture him back then- he would have looked the same, of course, though his clothes would be different. I thought of him sitting alone in this very same clearing, wondering if I would ever exist. It made me wish that I had waited for him a hundred years, as well- just so we could have been missing each other equally.

"Aren't ballads supposed to have words?" I teased lightly.

"I suppose so. But I didn't know what words to use, back then. I saw the love that Carlisle and Esme had- the kind that I wanted. But I didn't _know_ it. I didn't know, really, what being in love was like. Even though I could read the thoughts in my parent's minds, it was never a complete picture. I had no way of knowing how _consuming_ it was. How could I describe what I didn't know, yet? But now that I have you, maybe it's time to fill in the words." He looked back up at the sky thoughtfully, no doubt running through possible verses in his mind.

"No, leave it like it is. I like it," I decided. "And I especially liked the ending. It seemed hopeful."

"You caught that? That was the part where I hoped that I would someday be able to sing it again. I swore that I wouldn't sing or play it again until the day I brought you here."

"And now we're here," I whispered.

"Yes. Eighty years later, we're here. You're here." He reached over to my face, gently brushing down on my eyelids. I smiled and let my eyes drift shut, relaxing fully into his arms. He liked me to do this sometimes- pretend that I was sleeping. He had spent hundreds of nights watching me sleep while I was still human, and I knew he missed it sometimes.

"Sleep, Bella," he murmured, and as I slowed my breathing, he began to sing the ballad again.

I didn't miss sleeping, not really. Now that I never grew tired, my body felt no need to rejuvenate itself through inactivity. But I did miss dreaming, and I knew that Edward missed watching me, and he especially missed hearing me talk in my sleep. It had been his only way to read my mind back then. I could control my shield now, but it still wasn't the same. He missed having a window into my dreams.

So I did the next best thing. I relaxed my shield fully, and smiled when I felt him startle next to me. I let my mind drift, letting him follow me as I wandered through whatever waking dreams my thoughts took me. He kept singing, and eventually my dreams picked up the cadence of his song. I dreamed that we were dancing in our meadow, in this clearing, underwater, on the moon- anywhere I could imagine. I didn't even _like_ dancing, but somehow it seemed right, as long as he kept singing.

I must have gotten truly lost in my wanderings, because the next thing I knew, Edward was nudging my shoulder. "Bella? It's time to wake up."

I opened my eyes, blinking in the sunlight, and my shield snapped back into place.

"That's the longest it's ever been down," he said, grinning down at me. "That was nice."

I just smiled, watching him. I had somehow daydreamed right into the next day, and the sunlight was already touching Edward's face, covering him with a glittering brilliance. He reached down to my face, no doubt watching the diamonds on my own skin.

"I'm sorry to 'wake' you, love. But there's a group of hikers making their way toward us, and it's quite sunny."

I nodded and stood, brushing the dirt off of my dress. "Where do you want to go now?"

He smiled, showing his teeth and growling quietly. "I want a rematch."

We headed back south, laughing as we ran.


End file.
